Birds in Charcoal

Charcoal has been one of my personal favorites since my teenage years, when I accidentally discovered it for the first time. We had a huge earth oven on the yard, where bulky cooking or similar chores (such as, cooking for extended family gathering, or boiling whole rice before separating the grain from the chaff, or boiling heavy clothes in soapy water for better cleaning) would be done. We even had a room "খড়ি ঘর" (literally, room of firewood), where the we would store the firewood for the whole year. Occasionally, there would be dry twigs from the garden which were put in the oven. And when the oven would cool down (usually the next morning) someone would empty the ashes and other remnants. One day when it was my turn for the job, I discovered pieces of burnt twigs, somehow intact. They were soft and delicate but still could maintain their form. I used one piece and put some markings on a wall. It felt good, so I collected all I could and went on to create a few drawings with it on paper. But such natural charcoal sticks were hard to come by and I forgot this little incident.

Later when I grew older, I learned of charcoal as an official drawing tool and came to love it for the texture and rich tone it provided.

Charcoal on paper - copied from web